Is factual accuracy too much to ask from our politicians?

Stephen Colbert and Jake Tapper discussed the novel idea to fact check guests' statements that Tapper implemented on This Week (based on a suggestion by journalism professor Jay Rosen).

Colbert suggests that the prime rhetorical strategy used by the political guests on these shows is to repeat something until it seems true.

Reflections on WC--The Change I need

I guess I don't need to explain why this last week has been crazy. What might not be as apparent is why I felt so hopeful last Friday that this week would be not as bad as last week. The time demands were a little different but still many and persistent. I actually did write last Friday, a little on Monday--then everything frizzled.

I don't know all the chapters my self-help writing book would have, but several would be about reminding myself that my writing is worth it, is worthy of the demands it makes on my time even though it makes me feel selfish to do it instead of things that seem to more immediately help other people. One chapter might be to collaborate regularly: if I'm working with other people, I honor those commitments (plus I enjoy the process). Another might be to make my writing a priority even if it's a non-collaborative project. That's the big issue--writing just for me, not for anyone else or an externally imposed deadline.

I found the most helpful aspect of this club the motivation I had to make myself write and blog about it or I'd be letting other people down. So that was helpful to motivate me to write, but maybe just enabling my tendencies to do things for other people instead of ones that seem just for me.

I joined this club to get that kind of motivation. I think some other people may not have joined because they might have seen the interactive part of the club (and the reflective part) as more work that would take away from their time and focus on their own projects. Maybe that's not true, but I imagine that there are folks out there who are able to be productive because they focus mainly on their own work and involve themselves as minimally as possible in other work-related networks since they might distract from the narrow focus on what they are trying to accomplish. This may not be many people, but I imagine it's quite a few. I also wish I had their ability to require that focus on their own projects before other things.

Now I have to figure out how to make myself prioritize my writing even when it's solitary.

Hit the doldrums

I have been working on the article this week, but not blogging until now. I feel like I'm putting in the time but not moving forward at all. I spent 20 minutes Monday and 40 today reading a long article. It was helpful, but I still feel like I've accomplished nothing. And it was very tough when I started thinking about Sally's question about targeting an achievable goal to complete for the next 2 weeks (now it's a week and a half). Here's where I feel like all the little chunks aren't adding up to much. And this week is really busy: we've had phone interviews on a search committee I'm on plus the English 100 conference is this Friday, and I'm doing a lot of the organizing for that--and all that's on top of the usual hecticness winding up the semester.

I can either jump into more of my lit. or web searching or draft part of the article that I already have the angle and info on. I don't know what will be most helpful to target. But I'm still trying to work in at least 15 minutes for the next two days and try for 30 minutes four days next week. I'll sleep on it and decide tomorrow what I'll focus on.

Update on Thanksgiving week work

I didn't get any work done until yesterday. (We went out of town for Thanksgiving, plus I got sick, and got better. But I made an appropriately lowball estimate, which I met.)

I drafted for a while last night, sitting with the cat on my lap out of view of a clock, so I don't know exactly how long it was. I drafted several pages, and think it was at least 45 minutes, probably more, but I called it 45. This morning I typed that in and tinkered with a word or two: 15 minutes. Later today I started some lit review searching, found a good article which I read and found at least one good idea/quotation that will fit with my paper. 35 minutes.

So I think I exceeded my estimate by 5 minutes, it might have been a tad more if I underestimated how long I wrote and thought last night. But I was pleased that I got as much worked in on a holiday week. (Graded a batch of papers too!)

I was hoping I'd end up doing more, but as I made that estimate I tried to be as realistic as possible, so I guess I succeeded.

Prediction for the week

I predict I will write one and a half hours this week.

Days off from blogging, but I did write

I feel better looking at all the blogs and seeing that I wasn't the only one with a few days of not posting. I actually did write (about 30-40 min. on Thur. and 2 hours on Friday--maybe more). It was to finish up those last few changes the editors wanted on my chapter. Thursday was spent addressing some informational/clarification questions and condensing a few student quotations. Friday was spent writing a brief intro paragraph to one section, my bio-blurb, and the abstract--and proofing again one last time.

It did feel very good to get that sent off--I hope for the very last time!

Today I worked on some more website searches for my WC project again. Found a few, but my searches are suggesting that few wc websites contain such info about student publishing ops. One reference I found was in connection with a creative writing club the wc hosted, so I'm going to do a new search just for those.

Another 15 minutes

After my busy Tuesday not writing (as I had planned), I got back at it today. I worked 15 minutes (just before 7, even). I looked for publishing info on three more writing center websites and found some good stuff on two.

It didn't seem like much to have accomplished, but I was pleased that I did anything at all since I have so much grading still to do. I know that without having made this blog writing club commitment, I wouldn't have done anything. And just a little bit did make me feel like I had accomplished something.

I will continue the 15 minute plan tomorrow and hope to have a bit more time Friday to double that. That's pretty good at this busy time of the term with only self-imposed deadlines looming.

P. S. The binge was successful last week: the editors like the chapter overall and only want minor changes by Friday. That project is not the focus of this blog anymore, however, so those revisions won't figure in my discussion so I'm not tracking two proj. at once.